Financial Transparency Coalition

Yesterday, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) released an article explaining how they explore the hidden world of shell companies. After a three year long investigation, ICIJ’s director, Gerard Ryle, obtained information about offshore companies that included over 2.5 million files. These files contained information surrounding shell companies, nominee directors, and shareholders for over 122,000 shell companies. ICIJ found that most offshore companies were staffed by nominee directors, or people who sell their name to be listed as part of the company. ICIJ also found that the people setting up offshore companies were mostly...

Just yesterday the German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung published the names of wealthy Germans who are listed as company directors in the well-known tax haven of Panama. An article entitled “Germany’s offshore money and the hacker who helped expose it” by Tim Fernholz at Quartz explains the details and the implications. Among the names were some of the richest German families that include the automaker Porsche, the coffee king Jacobs, and the banker von Fink. While some families claimed they knew nothing, that argument holds no water in a tax haven such as Panama. These names...